Rachel Ruysch: Nature Into Art. By RobertSchindler, BerndEbert, and Anna C.Knaap (eds.), Boston: MFA Publications, 2024. 247 pp., $55.00 (hardcover). ISBN: 9780878468997, 0878468994

One would have to be deeply cynical not to be enchanted by the visually stunning exhibition Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art. Glancing across galleries painted in tones of green and shades of mauve and pink ranging from pale lilac to dark peony, Ruysch's heavy cabbage roses and bright red opium poppies beckon, enveloping visitors in a luxurious atmosphere one can almost (or, in Toledo, actually) smell. Ruysch was one of the best-known artists of the Baroque in her time; the exquisiteness of her flower still lifes was acknowledged from the moment she first started painting them, in the early 1680s. In recent years, her paintings have been included in group exhibitions on women, still lifes and nature, and early modern Netherlandish art. However unlikely it may seem, Rachel Ruysch: Nature Into Art is the first significant monographic exhibition devoted to the artist in more than 300 years. The exhibition opened at the Alta Pinakothek Munich on 26 November 2024, from where it travelled to the Toledo Museum of Art, in Ohio (April to July 2025) and to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (August to December 2025). The catalogue that accompanies the exhibition contains the only comprehensive scholarly research on the artist since Marianne Berardi's 1998 unpublished (although publicly available) doctoral dissertation, from which the exhibition derives its title. This review concerns the exhibition at all three venues and the catalogue, published by MFA Publications.1 The exhibition is timely. The urgency of environmental devastation and climate concerns have prompted several major museums to present exhibitions on flora and fauna and the art of nature. Decades of insistence on better gender representation have jolted museums into prioritizing exhibitions featuring women artists.2 Nature Into Art meets the moment. It distinguishes itself from the other recent excellent exhibitions by bringing together a broad range of perspectives, as set out below. Curated by Bernd Ebert (AP), Robert Schindler (TMA) and Anna C. Knaap (MFA), the exhibition rests on a curatorial scaffolding of four thematic pillars (the names of which vary slightly across venues): An Auspicious Beginning, which explores Ruysch's evolution as a young artist; The Two Sisters, which features a visual conversation between Rachel and her younger sister, Anna, who was also a talented artist; Art, Nature, and Science, which sets the pursuit of the knowledge of flora and fauna and the embrace of empiricism as a contextual backdrop for the world in which Ruysch's art came into being; and Fame and Fortune, which consists of an overview of Ruysch's high-ranking patrons and of her success as one of the best-selling artists of her time. A core group of approximately thirty-five paintings by Ruysch traveled to each location, with others appearing at some of the venues only. A portrait of Ruysch at work by Michiel van Musscher in collaboration with Ruysch, introducing her as a confident artist, featured proudly at all three venues (Figure 1), on display for the first time since its acquisition by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Yet, the three iterations of the exhibition varied considerably from each other, not only in size (with the AP edition being the largest and the MFA's the smallest), with respect to the selection of works on display, with different approaches to exhibition design, but also in terms of focus. In Munich, Ebert placed the emphasis on the Elector Palatine's patronage of Ruysch, a decision which enabled the museum to highlight the strengths of German collections and the artist's connections to the country, which go back at least as far as 1708, when the Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm, high-ranking in the Holy Roman Empire and son-in-law of Cosimo III de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, named Ruysch court painter. Set against burgundy walls, paintings including Bouquet of Flowers from 1708 (Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen München), with its vibrant green praying mantis, invite close inspection. A portrait of Ruysch with her husband Juriaen Pool and their son Jan Willem (named in honour of the Elector), believed to be a collaboration by Ruysch and Pool, anchors this section and underscores the significance of the patronage for the artist. Particularly compelling is a case containing a large medallion of Johann Wilhelm, like the one his namesake wears around his neck in the family portrait, and a letter from Ruysch dated 1715, in which she described a painting intended for the Elector as filled with ‘strange and rare flowers’. These objects complement the paintings and are helpful in conveying the deep appreciation the Elector had for Ruysch—and vice versa. In contrast, the intersection of art and science was key to understanding Ruysch's work at the MFA. Occupying three galleries out of the exhibition's five, arrangements of mounted insects recalling colourful mosaics, dried plant specimens, cases with oversized books and works on paper intermingled with paintings to produce a dynamic display. As the eye travelled from specimens to illustrations, one could not help trying to locate the various insects and flowers in the paintings—a Baroque version of Where's Waldo with a Hercules beetle. The first gallery drew attention to the significance of Ruysch's upbringing, together with her sister Anna, in the world of wonder created by their father, the celebrated anatomist Frederik Ruysch. The second gallery foregrounded the network of botanical and entomological artists active in Amsterdam at the same time as Ruysch, including Maria Sibylla Merian, Alida Withoos and Herman Henstenburg. Although she almost certainly would have known at least some of these artists, this is a leap that is not made explicitly in the gallery nor in the catalogue. The third gallery, also the largest, was conceived as the centrepiece of the exhibition, with its display of Ruysch's illustrations of plants non-native to Western Europe. Based on the work of Charles C. Davis (professor of biology at Harvard University and curator of the Harvard University Herbaria), a map and a video convey the wide reach of the regents and caretakers of the Amsterdam botanical garden (then known as the hortus medicus) in obtaining specimens from Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Consequently, the focus of the MFA's installation was in sharp distinction to the approach at the AP, which situated Frederik Ruysch and the evolution of early modern natural history in a gallery that stood physically separated from the others, which arguably undermined the role of science in Ruysch's artistic practice. Unintentionally, however, Boston's attention to art and science had the converse effect of shifting the visitor's attention away from Ruysch as an artist of extraordinary talent. With fewer paintings on display than in Munich but more than in Boston, the exhibition design in Toledo featured a gallery layout that naturally guided the visitor through a narrative that began with Ruysch's early paintings, not unlike at the AP, set in conversation with those who influenced her, directly and indirectly, including her teacher Willem van Aelst and (near-) contemporaries such as Otto Marseus van Schrieck, Jan Davidsz. De Heem and Maria van Oosterwijck. In a competition that pits the young Ruysch against her mentors and predecessors—searching for the most realistic morning glory, the liveliest poppy, the most dynamic ornamental grass—it seems obvious that Ruysch is destined to surpass them all. As at the AP and the MFA, visitors to the TMA were treated to drawings by Ruysch's contemporaries, wet and dry specimens, as well as large, illustrated books. It was only here, however, that extra emphasis was given to the Surinam toad, which carries and hatches its eggs on its back. The toad was a rarity at the end of the seventeenth century in Amsterdam, engaging the study and fascination of experts and curieux alike, from Frederik Ruysch and polymath Nicolaas Witsen, among others. Toledo was the only location to display a drawing of the Surinam toad by Ruysch, which Schindler discovered in the archives of the Royal Society in London. Schindler's find is significant in a number of ways. The drawing, dating to c. 1688, is the only one securely attributed to Ruysch and one of the earliest representations of the toad in Western Europe, pre-dating Maria Sibylla Merian's by at least twelve years. It is a near-perfect match for a painting of the Surinam toad by Ruysch dated 1690 (Musée du Grand Siècle, Saint-Cloud), confirming that Ruysch relied on drawings in creating the compositions of at least some of her paintings, a practice that is not surprising but for which no evidence had previously been located. Furthermore, the presence of the drawing in the archives of the Royal Society, where it most likely accompanied a letter to the Society sent by Witsen, who was a member, offers further support for the participation of Ruysch in the networks connecting empirical science and natural history in late seventeenth-century Amsterdam. Emerging from a close encounter with the Surinam toad, a visitor then walked into the world of the elite patrons that supported Ruysch from an early time, the most significant of which, of course, was the Elector. As in Munich and Boston, the family portrait of Ruysch with Pool and their son took pride of place. Here, the chronological approach worked particularly well, as the period of time spanning the patronage of the Elector (who passed away in 1716, before Ruysch's last painting for him could be delivered) coincided with the peak of Ruysch's experimentation with complex compositions that included a wide number of species non-native to Western Europe (as noted by Davis in his catalogue essay), thereby linking the galleries intellectually as well as physically. At all three venues, the exhibition closed with the small paintings that Ruysch produced in her old age. These canvases, unlike the almost bombastic compositions such as the Nelson-Atkins Museum painting (see Figure 2), are subdued, in a softer colour palette. They feature simple compositions of local flowers. Dating from the 1730s and 1740s, these paintings reflect the aesthetic tendencies of the rococo. Importantly, they display the sensibilities of an artist who is proudly able to carry on doing what she loves—as the paintings Ruysch inscribed with her age attest. The intimate scale of these works creates a quiet bond between artist and viewer, a sentiment which is also evoked by a small portrait of Ruysch in ink by Aert Schouman dated 1749, one year before her death. Unlike the portrait by Van Musscher (Figure 1), the artist shown here is old, with sunken, wrinkled cheeks (Figure 3). The attributes that accompany the depiction of the artist include brushes, grapes and peaches, and the medallion of Johann Wilhelm—a reminder, if one was needed, that Ruysch remained an acclaimed artist to the end. The most engaging and innovative aspect of the exhibition across all venues was the exploration of the fluid relationship between art, nature and science, a topic that has received increasing scholarly attention over the past decade. Bringing this field of inquiry to the public is important; as Eric Jorink and Bart Ramakers (2011) noted, ‘in the early modern era the contemporary Latin terms ars and scientia were complementary rather than opposites, covering a spectrum of meanings such as skill, experience and knowledge’ such that ‘the meanings of the words are often interchangeable’. Interestingly, and perhaps surprisingly, the topics of imperial botany (which some scholars have termed biopiracy) and colonization were only directly addressed at the MFA and the TMA, the latter unfortunately in an area situated at the exit of the exhibition, which disconnected these practices from the beautiful art that they made possible. Although the AP installation celebrated the inclusion of many ‘exotic’ species in Ruysch's paintings, it contained no discussion of how these specimens came to be in Western Europe. One wonders whether the exclusion in Munich and inclusion in the United States was a response to the needs and requests of local audiences, lenders and museum stakeholders. A disappointment in this otherwise superb exhibition was the overall lack of attention given to the exploration of the role of women in the illustration of nature (touched upon in Toledo only) and to the important contribution of women to the arts in the seventeenth century generally. The section of the exhibition focused on Anna and Rachel Ruysch, for example, likely left visitors with two impressions: first, that Anna was a talented copyist of Rachel's works but lacked the talent and ingenio of her sister when it came to succeeding in what was otherwise a man's world; and second, that like most women artists, Anna ceased painting when she married. Set against Anna, Rachel becomes an exception, a perception that has been increasingly undermined in recent exhibitions featuring female artists and makers. Unfortunately, the result is that viewers are not invited to imagine the many different ways in which women artists likely continued contributing to the arts after marriage. The accompanying catalogue, like the exhibition, is beautifully produced. Edited by Schindler, Ebert and Knapp, the volume is lavishly illustrated, filled with full-sized images of entire paintings as well as details. The volume contains the most up-to-date scholarship on Ruysch, an artist whose last monographic study in English (apart from Berardi's dissertation in 1998) was Maurice Grant's 1956 book, consisting of a two-page biography of the artist and a catalogue. The ten scholarly essays of the catalogue set out the latest research findings on Ruysch as well as important contextual information and directly support each of the four thematic pillars of the exhibition. Essays that stand out include Schindler's ‘Rachel Ruysch: A (Re)introduction’, in which the author frames the four themes of the exhibition. Schindler's thorough familiarity with the oeuvre of Ruysch shines through as he points to individual details in paintings to frame his narrative. The essay is exemplary in its willingness to take educated risks, notably in exploring the relationship between Ruysch and her sister Anna. Upon close inspection, Schindler suggests that the painting Flowers in a Vase (Figure 4) may have been a collaboration between the two sisters. This hypothesis is based on stylistic analysis as well as on the practical realities facing Ruysch: her works were highly popular, and it is not unlikely that she may have turned to her talented sister to assist in meeting demand. Although this attribution has not (yet) been accepted, Schindler's argument is convincing and worth exploring further not only with respect to this painting, but in taking a renewed approach to tracing the contributions of women artists in early modernity. Davis's ‘Painting the Botanical World’ is, as far as I am aware, the first to systematically consider the origin of specimens depicted in the oeuvre of a single artist. Identifying specimens and tracing their appearance in Ruysch's canvases overtime, Davis charts Ruysch's fascination with non-native species over the arc of her long career. A visual dissection of the Nelson-Atkins painting (Figure 2), juxtaposed with a world map of species' origins, makes it clear that Ruysch was an international artist in more ways than one. The essay ‘The Diversity and Beauty of Nature’, by Katharina Schmidt-Loske, functions as a pendant to Davis's essay, offering an overview of the diversity of insect life in Ruysch's paintings, based on a survey of eighty-nine of the artist's works (out of more than 250). As with flower and plant specimens, Ruysch's insects came from the four corners of the world. Knapp's essay ‘Amsterdam's Flora: Rachel Ruysch within a Network of Horticultural Collectors’, provides the context for both Davis's and Schmidt-Loske's essays. The Flora in the essay's title refers to Agnes Block, a Dutch botanist and art patron who was an important source of knowledge, material, and commissions for a wide network of artists, garden enthusiasts, and botanists alike. Although it contains a small number of unfortunate inaccurate assumptions (e.g., that Block built her country estate, Vijverhof, to display her wealth, 74) and factual errors (the portrait of Block and her family is by Jan Weenix, and not Jan Baptist Weenix, 76), the essay compellingly makes the case for the importance of the networks active in and around Amsterdam that made possible the possession and cultivation of the rare and uncommon specimens of flora and fauna identified in Ruysch's oeuvre. Rounding out the catalogue are essays by Bert van de Roemer (‘Art is Human Added to Nature’), which explore the relationship between art and nature in early modernity, Ebert (‘Beyond Beauty: Collecting Ruysch in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’), which explores the patronage of Ruysch, which was both high-ranking and international and Lieke van Deinsen (‘Painting with Poetry’), which discusses an anthology of poetry dedicated to Ruysch and her art, Dichterlovers voor de uitmuntende schilderesse mejuffrouwe Rache Ruisch. A technical analysis of the painting Collector Josephus Augustinus Brentano in his Picture Gallery, by Adriaan de Lelie (1813, Rijksmuseum, on loan from Stichting Brentano's Steun des Ouderdoms), discussed in the essay ‘Forever in Bloom’, by Josephina de Fouw, Nouchka de Keyser and Jorinde Koenen, supports the argument that Ruysch's works were prestigious to collect and display well into the nineteenth century. Taken together, these essays highlight not only the significance of Ruysch as an artist in her lifetime and thereafter but also in a context in which the examination and understanding of nature and its relationship to art and humans was of foremost importance. In addition to the wealth of information contained in the essays, the appendices at the end of the volume are certain to become essential These include a map of Amsterdam Ruysch in to other artists and as well as the Amsterdam of in honour of Ruysch, and of botanical species identified in a number of paintings by Ruysch. Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art a a world by and for the of nature. The thematic exhibition offers a for monographic the essays of the catalogue further of research with respect to Ruysch, women artists of the seventeenth and the between and artistic